At Bethany Sixth Form, our belief is that it is the collective responsibility of all teachers and parents to inspire pupils to fulfil their ambitions and dare to dream. Our young people these days are almost spoilt for choice for next steps – be it university, apprenticeships, employment or gap years!

If we focus on Apprenticeships for a moment, that world is evolving very quickly before our eyes. There are now numerous careers and opportunities open to pupils that simply weren’t available 2-3 years ago. For example, over 70 universities are approved to deliver higher/degree apprenticeships. This list is growing all the time as new apprenticeships are developed, and more employers look to recruit apprentices. Traditional ‘degree only’ careers such as teaching/nursing now have apprenticeship routes! Parents can find out more about Apprenticeships via the following websites:

Government website – www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship

Vacancy snapshot – amazingapprenticeships.com/vacancies

In the Sixth Form, pupils have a weekly careers lesson entitled ‘Project Horizon’ where guest speakers from all walks of life present to try to inspire pupils in their career choice. So far this year we have had InvestIn Education (a work experience company), a representative from Shell to talk about Management Consultancy, a local law firm with their degree apprentices, NCS rep (National Citizens Service) and LetzLive rep (gap year company) to name but a few. We will also be bringing all of Year 12 in June in a to be announced trip to the Kent Showgrounds in Maidstone to attend the local UCAS exhibition where pupils can learn about all things university as well as apprenticeships (you heard it here first!). To add to this we had our annual ‘Careers Fair’ in October where we had 24 different vendors with stands from the NHS, Barclays, the Army, Kent Police, Specsavers, UCA, the University of Portsmouth to name but a handful – all year groups had an opportunity to attend this fair for it is never too early to start to dream big.

A platform we use to inspire pupils to dream is called ‘Unifrog’. All pupils from Year 7 to 13 have an account which they can access through its website via their school e-mail address as a username – www.unifrog.org/sign-in. The name of this careers platform is slightly misleading as it covers so much more than universities. As a school, we have incorporated ‘Unifrog’ into the PSHCE curriculum from Year 7 to 11, and subject staff/tutors are encouraged to utilise it at every opportunity be it via the ‘CV building tool’ or simply to demonstrate what careers are available in the world of ‘Geography’ for example. We also thoroughly encourage parents to log-in and explore and challenge your children to dare to dream big.

It is a tough job preparing pupils for an ever changing workplace, and arguably jobs that don’t exist at the minute – never mind the disruption to the workplace that AI will bring! However if teachers, tutors, house staff and parents are all encouraging a proactive and ambitious approach – pupils can believe in themselves to dare to dream and who knows what careers paths they might end up on with this mantra with the possibility of actually being spoilt for choice with the many pathways ahead as they feel confident to tackle those next steps as an educated decision.

Mr Duff

Head of Sixth Form